Most people like to bring something back from their travels and I am one of those people. However in recent times I haven’t been bringing back ornaments, but crafty bits, often beads, that I can enjoy using and that will remind me of my trip (see a nice reminder for an example of what I have made in the past).

When in Bath for my birthday in Sept, we came across many fab things. You’ve seen the ribbon and buttons I bought, but I didn’t tell you about the haematite. Just up the road from the Roman Baths there was a market stall selling fossils and gemstones. Most gemstones weren’t much use to me, but he did have a few made into bracelets, so I bought some. The bracelets were simply drilled polished stones strung onto elastic. I bought haematite and black onyx (i think!). I did joke to Mr M that I’ll have to wear them when teaching about iron extraction (haematite is the iron ore my students have to name) but that’s a tad sad.

I hadn’t made anything with my bracelets since buying them for two reasons – lack of time and lack of another bead to go with them. It’s my half term holiday now, so that has given me more time than usual, so I can’t use time as an excuse any more. When in Shaftesbury, I found and bought some small haematite beads at The Beadster. So, that’s all my complications solved.

I ruined some of yesterday’s hard work in tidying my craft bits upstairs and brought my jewellery bits back downstairs and got to work. I started with these:

And soon ended up with these:

It’s quite basic, but is quite stunning with the way light reflects off the stones. Each of the bigger stones is a unique shape, as nature intended. It’s quite a heavy necklace, so I doubled up on wire for support. I liked the way the necklace sat on top of my high necked jumper earlier. This is definitely a keepsake for me!

As I had my jewellery making stuff out to make my sister a bracelet, I decided to make something for myself. I had previously treated myself to some silver plated hollow beads:

I turned the beads into a matching set of a three layer necklace, earrings and bracelet:

The beads reflect a lot of light, as you can see in the photo above! I wanted another silver coloured option to wear to work. I can guarantee that no one else will have the same. According to a couple of kids I teach I am a jewellery designer!

When I ran my giveaway, one of the prizes was a surprise for the winner. Janey of Is That You Darling won and told me her favourite colour is purple. In her comment on the giveaway she mentioned that she’d never tried jewellery making, so I decided to make her some purple jewellery. Luckily I had some purple wire and beads, so I put this together:

I must admit taking photos late at night on a phone never gets the best results, so this is actually Janey’s photo from a post on all her recent wins (she’s a lucky lady!). Hopefully she won’t mind! I didn’t post about it earlier as I wanted it to be a surprise.

It looks as though she has plans for some of the buttons she won. I can’t wait to see the bracelet she wants to make.

On Friday I read the Crafty Networks mini challenge for September 12th. The theme is Black and White and as I read it I was wearing my only plain black necklace. The post said ” I am looking this week for craft entries that are black, white, black & white or anything in-between, no other colours please”. Well I’m a little bit bored with my current plain black necklace, and whilst my new sparkly necklace is nice, sometimes I want something that is just black. I decided to make myself something over the weekend.

Using a box of black 5mm pearls by the Craft Factory (reduced to 50p in the Reading John Lewis), black jewellery wire and a few findings, I made myself this on Sunday afternoon.

When doing a bit of shopping prior to the new school term, I came across this necklace for £2 down from £10 in BHS.

I liked the flowers, but the fully beaded chain made it a bit chunky for me. There was of course the common earring issue too…

Out came the wire cutters and pliers!

First up, I made the earrings using the two outer most flowers, a split ring and earring hooks:

I quite liked the silver beads with the flowers, so I kept some in the new necklace design. I reused the lobster clasp and extender from the original necklace, only adding new wire (which I doubled up for strength), jump rings, callotes and crimps. My new necklace is a lot less bulky and more me:

In addition to my new necklace and matching earrings, I also have over 30 pearl silver beads to add to my bead stash!